


with nothing left to offer

by saintsurvivor



Series: tumblr drabbles [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Lonely James T. Kirk, M/M, Post-Star Trek Beyond, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 15:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11443353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: Like it’s a privilege and not common knowledge that McCoy believes in him, trusts him.





	with nothing left to offer

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble is rebloggable [**here**](http://starflheets.tumblr.com/post/162294310823). Also, I do take prompts, not just for star trek, but for a variety of fandoms.

#  _with nothing left to offer_

 

_\---_

 

“Looks like you could use a drink, kiddo,” McCoy says, sliding into the seat next to Kirk.

Kirk turns his head, the stiff dress uniform digging into his neck as he raises the glass of Terran bourbon in his hand. He smiles brightly, hair a luminous gold beneath the lights of the bar.

“Beat you too it, Bones,” Kirk laughs throatily, knocking his half full glass against the Doctor’s own tumbler of whiskey.

“Great minds think alike, then,” McCoy shoots back, and Kirk smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. Kirk leans closer, knocking his shoulder against McCoy’s and resting there. McCoy doesn’t protest, letting Kirk rest his head against him, the warmth of his friend’s body soothing the ache that three back to back twelve hour shifts at Medical had ground into his body.

“I’ve missed this,” Kirk says softly, shifting to sip at his bourbon. He straightens just a little, relaxing against the bar and running a hand through his hair. McCoy watches him closely, noting the wrinkles of worry around his friend’s glowing eyes.

McCoy sighs. “Me too, kid,” He says in the end, taking his own sip of whiskey as Kirk stared at the gritty countertop. “Felt like I’ve hardly seen any of you since your birthday,”

“Two months,” Kirk says wistfully, staring out of the conveniently placed window from where they’re both sitting.

“Two long months,” McCoy echos, but he isn’t looking at the stars. He’s looking at Kirk.

“Scotty’s been having a field day, of course,” Kirk mentions, laughing quietly into his tumbler.

“That man’ll have fun with just wires and a welding machine,” McCoy grumbles, quietly relishing in the look of cheerfulness in his Captain’s eyes. It’s been too long. “Now he’s helping to rebuild your lady, again,”

“Don’t be jealous, Bonesy,” Kirk chuckles, tipping his glass and knocking it against his friends. “You’ll be back in your own Medbay soon enough,”

“And having to patch your accident prone ass up, of course,” McCoy says, feeling his hands tightening against the wood bartop. Contrary to belief, he doesn’t like having to patch both his friend and Captain up every time things go to shit. He’s had his hands in Jim Kirk’s stomach and chest to patch up internal bleeding and injuries more times then he’s ever wanted to think about it.

“I’d never let anyone else try it,” Kirk laughs, but there’s a fond echo to his slowly fading smile that makes the corners of McCoy’s own lips curl up. It makes him think of the Academy, all those years ago now. How Kirk always looked so effortlessly happy and weightless.

“Good,” McCoy says gruffly, as if he wasn’t contemplating how long it’s been since he’s seen Kirk truly happy. You’re not alone on a spaceship, McCoy thinks, but you can always be lonely. “Some idiot doctor would probably fuck your ass up, anyway,”

“Such faith in your compatriots, Bones!” Kirk teases, leaning in and hooking his arm around McCoy’s own. This close, McCoy can smell the mint of his breath, the acrid smell of bourbon close behind.

“Only because of your fool immune system,” McCoy shoots back, wrapping his own arm around Kirk’s shoulders, knocking their shoulders together before Kirk’s is shoved under McCoy’s. “Honestly, ain’t never heard of anybody having an allergic reaction to the anti-allergy hypo, unnatural is what is it,”

“You sure know how to cheer up a girl,” Kirk says, laughing. His eyes crinkle again, and McCoy rolls his shoulders back, suddenly uncomfortable.

“We’ll get back out there, Jim,” McCoy says, soft in a way he only ever is with his little girl and Kirk. “It’s just a matter of time,”

Kirk puts down his almost finished tumbler, and his mouth has become a grim line in the blank slate of his face. He’s still leaning against McCoy, still tucked under his shoulder. Kirk turns so his mouth is pressed against the ball of McCoy’s shoulder.

“I applied for Vice Admiral,” Kirk says, as if he hasn’t suddenly made the foundations of McCoy’s world collapse into dust.

“ _What_?” McCoy gasps, like he’s surprised he can still talk.

Kirk doesn’t answer for a long time, the din of the bar growing ever louder between them. They’re inseparable, and there isn’t even an inch of space between them, but Kirk feels as far away from him as he was on the Enterprise before Krall.

He’s quiet for that long that McCoy opens his mouth, starts to speak.

“Before, everything,” Kirk finally says, and there is something in his voice that makes McCoy think of trembling glass. “I’ve rescinded the application but-,”

Kirk cuts himself off with a choked breath. He presses his mouth further into McCoy’s shoulder, and McCoy can feel the faint impressions of his teeth even though the thick tunic material.

“Why, kiddo?” McCoy says. Kirk laughs, but it isn’t like before, light and hearty.

“I was lonely , Bones,” Kirk finally admits, and maybe it’s because he’s had enough bourbon, that the din of the bar is loud enough to drown out even the smallest of whispers, the loudest of shouts. “I still feel it, and I look at my ship and it’s just too far out of my grasp,”

It’s almost an echo of their conversation, all those months ago, on Kirk’s birthday. The slightest tremble that McCoy detects in Kirk’s voice, so quiet and soft, is a gut punch, five fingered claw, to the sternum.

“You’re not your father, Jimmy,” Is all McCoy says, because he knows sometimes Kirk needs it beaten into him. Needs it like he wants the stars, his Captain’s chair.

“I know, Bones,” says Kirk, softly. “Sometimes-,”

“Sometimes you wonder why you do it,” McCoy finishes for him. It’s something he’s asked himself before.

Kirk tilts his head back, this magnificent man with too sad eyes.

“Yeah,” He says in the end. Like he doesn’t know how to say anything else. McCoy tightens his arm around Kirk’s shoulders, pulls him roughly in and kisses him on the top of the head, stays there for just a minute.

“You’ve always got me, kiddo,” McCoy says, after a while. “Always,”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Bones,” Kirk says softly. He clutches a hand to McCoy’s uniform. McCoy pulls back, grabs Kirk by the chin, tilts his head up.

“You’ve always got me, Jimmy,” McCoy reiterates, stronger than before. Stronger than he even said it before he followed Kirk out into the black after the Narada .

Kirk’s eyes waver between McCoy’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Kirk whispers. Like it’s a privilege and not common knowledge that McCoy believes in him, trusts him.

“It was never a question for me, Jimmy,” McCoy says. He’s still holding Kirk by the chin, reels him in slowly, tucks his own chin on top of Kirk’s head and Kirk hides in his throat, eyelashes soft against his skin.

Kirk doesn’t anything for a long time after.

What they don’t say lies between them.

 

\---


End file.
